I wear the national dress because it is the most natural and the most becoming for an Indian.

It’s hard to articulate how I think about myself as a public figure.

I’d like to be known for more than being the guy in the big suit.

Fashion is an imposition, a reign on freedom.

When I am putting looks together, I dare myself to make something work. I always look for the most interesting silhouette or something that’s a little off, but I have to figure it out. I have to make it me. I think that’s the thrill in fashion.

The concept of commercialism in the fashion and art world is looked down upon. You know, just to think, ‚What amount of creativity does it take to make something that masses of people like?‘ And, ‚How does creativity apply across the board?‘

Fashion is very important. It is life-enhancing and, like everything that gives pleasure, it is worth doing well.

Fashion is life-enhancing, and I think it’s a lovely, generous thing to do for other people.

I guess it’s flattering that everyone believed I was those characters, but it also is dehumanizing.

In the egoic state, your sense of self, your identity, is derived from your thinking mind – in other words, what your mind tells you about yourself: the storyline of you, the memories, the expectations, all the thoughts that go through your head continuously and the emotions that reflect those thoughts. All those things make up your sense of self.

I don’t care if you get up in the morning and don’t wash, don’t put any make-up on, don’t do your hair, even, but you have to have clothes if you want to look different.

I love wearing whatever is comfortable, and that could be something which was in trend years ago. So, I don’t follow fashion.

Music is part of the life of fashion, too.

The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.

It’s like, remember who you always were, where you came from, who your parents were, how they raised you. Because that authentic self is going to follow you all through life, so make sure that it’s solid so it’s something that you can hold on and be proud of for the rest of your life.

Fashion is made to become unfashionable.

Fashion is one thing, but style is another.

What a liberation to realize that the ‚voice in my head‘ is not who I am. ‚Who am I, then?‘ The one who sees that.

The answer is, who you are cannot be defined through thinking or mental labels or definitions, because it’s beyond that. It is the very sense of being, or presence, that is there when you become conscious of the present moment. In essence, you and what we call the present moment are, at the deepest level, one.

I never expected to see the day when girls would get sunburned in the places they now do.

It was weird to be married; you kind of lose your identity. You’re suddenly somebody’s wife. And you’re like, ‚Oh, I’m half of a couple now. I’ve lost me.‘

I think style is being so comfortable and confident in what you’re wearing. That’s what style is, ‚cause everybody’s got different style.

I love ripped jeans! They are flattering. I’m very petite, so I think they make my butt look lovely.

I’m not one icon. I’m every icon. I’m an icon that is made out of all the colors on the palette at every time. I have no restrictions. No restrictions.

I think I lived those years very impersonally. It was almost as though I had erected someone outside myself who was the president’s wife. I was lost somewhere deep down inside myself. That is the way I felt and worked until I left the White House.

We are not what we are, nor do we treat or esteem each other for such, but for what we are capable of being.

I try not to go around looking like a hag.

I try never to wear my own clothes, I pretend I’m someone else.

One of the things that we’re trying to do with Creative Labs and all our experiences is explore things that aren’t all tied to Facebook identity. Some things will be, but not everything will have to be, because there are some sets of experiences that are just better with other identities.

Everyone, no doubt, remains first and foremost a man of his own country and continues to draw from it his motive force.

Nationality is the miracle of political independence; race is the principle of physical analogy.

Fresh sneakers are important on a man. It’s like a new pair of boxers or a new pair of socks.

Even as a kid, I wore J.C. Penney plain-pocket jeans because they were plain pockets. I didn’t want anybody’s name on my backside. I personally don’t like to wear clothing that is named for somebody or has someone’s likeness all over it.

I think I would like to go into modelling. Of course, I don’t know how to do it, and wouldn’t be any good at it if I did, so I’m going to employ someone to walk the catwalks on my behalf. It would still be me, of course.

I’m confident in who I am. I’ve come to a place in my life where I’ve accepted things that are me, as opposed to feeling pressure to explain myself to people around me. That’s just the way I’ve always tried to be. It didn’t change when I became a star.

The effect of music on fashion has been immense, especially hip-hop and urban music.

My son’s full real name is Duncan Zowie Haywood. As a toddler, he was called by his second name Zowie. But it was such an identifiable name during the Seventies that if I called him loudly in public places, everyone would turn to stare, so I started calling him Joey to take the pressure off.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m as famous for my wheelchair and disabilities as I am for my discoveries.

I live halfway between reality and theater at all times. And I was born this way.

I don’t look at myself as a commodity, but I’m sure a lot of people have.

Obviously black matches with everything.

I just dress like… I’m an old black man. Sorry! Like I’m an old Jewish black man. I just dress like it’s still the ’50s.

We are braver and wiser because they existed, those strong women and strong men… We are who we are because they were who they were. It’s wise to know where you come from, who called your name.

I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world.

How many cares one loses when one decides not to be something but to be someone.

The question isn’t, ‚What do we want to know about people?‘, It’s, ‚What do people want to tell about themselves?‘

My style offstage is so different from onstage. I love a pair of sexy heels with jeans, a nice jacket, or a little dress.

To me, the black black woman is our essential mother, the blacker she is the more us she is and to see the hatred that is turned on her is enough to make me despair, almost entirely, of our future as a people.

I’d rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I am not.

I have never felt that the one thing that I am ‚known for‘ is what I am.

At one time, I was very angry. I even treated fashion like a kind of crusade: you were either with us or against us, that kind of feeling. Now I know we need ideas, not kicking down a door.

I think tattoos are horrible. It’s like living in a Pucci dress full-time.

Fashion is inspired by youth and nostalgia and draws inspiration from the best of the past.

I wear a hat on stage so that people won’t be blinded by the reflection from my head. Also, if I don’t wear a hat, there’s no way that the hat can be at that level by itself on the stage.

Honestly, I like everything, boyish girls, girlish boys, the heavy and the skinny.

When you call yourself an Indian or a Muslim or a Christian or a European or anything else, you are being violent. Do you see why it is violent? Because you are separating yourself from the rest of mankind. When you separate yourself by belief, by nationality, by tradition, it breeds violence.

If you deny people their own voice, you’ll have no idea of who they were.

If somebody thinks they’re a hedgehog, presumably you just give ‚em a mirror and a few pictures of hedgehogs and tell them to sort it out for themselves.

It’s a representation of yourself, and you can express a lot of your creativity with what your wearing.

In heaven an angel is nobody in particular.

It is always better to be slightly underdressed.